Michelle Shocked Does Not Hate Gay People, So Why Did She Say God Does? [Update: There Was Bad Information on the Internet! Surprise!]

Update, 3/22: You can listen to audio from Michelle Shocked's rant below. So we have a great deal of information now -- her initial lunatic outburst, her highly measured response and the reaction of the masses. Judge for yourself.

Update, 3/20: The Texas Observerhas an open letter from Michelle Shocked to her fans. It's worth reading -- the crux lies right here: "If I could repeat the evening, I would make a clearer distinction between a set of beliefs I abhor, and my human sympathy for the folks who hold them."

Although her argument seems to still amount to, "I was saying what misunderstood people say," which isn't a very good one. But she does make some solid points about fairness, namely that many of the people decrying her remarks feel the same sinister discomfort around evangelicals as certain evangelicals feel around homosexuals. And she's right to describe herself as, "an artist in this time of unbearable culture wars."

North Texas native Michelle Shocked earned the disdain of her crowd in San Francisco when she reportedly told them, ""You can go on Twitter and say, 'Michelle Shocked says God hates fags.'" They did, and now she's getting booted off various club's schedules around the country. OK, so an artist said a really stupid thing. Wouldn't be the first time. But this one is strange. Either we have the whole story and she should know way, way better, or we're missing some critical details. There's certainly cause for suspicion -- Shocked's only public address since the incident has been to Tweet "Truth is leading to a painful confrontation," which is useless vagary and to retweet the most inflammatory vitriol headed in her direction.

Shocked has a long history of proximity with the LGBT community -- she was for years famously assumed to be a lesbian. She never exactly shoved those rumors off with the fervor of a bigot. In fact, she often used the fact that it was a constant source of conversation to approach the issue in typically measured fashion. I don't know what she was thinking in San Francisco or what exactly happened (the Tweet feed is a notoriously ridiculous source of good information, and that's most of where it's coming from at this point). But I would be amazed to learn, even in spite of her Born Again conversion, that she has gone Full Westboro.

In a 2008 interview with DC9 at Night, writer Darryl Smyers broached the topics of religion and sexuality with Shocked. Their conversation follows -- I've moved the particularly relevant topics to the top, but be sure to read the whole thing for an in-retrospect hilarious moment where she, a Mormon by upbringing, says the sentence, "But thinking about Mormons, can you imagine how awful it would have been if Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee for president?"

Well, as it turns out, not so awful for a Lefty like you, Shocked. I digress, slightly: Regardless of circumstance or context, you can't get away with saying "God hates fags" and expect anything other than a well-deserved clobbering. Idiots say stupid things all the time -- my Twitter newsfeed is peppered with backward thinking and general insanity as I type. The reason this is so notable, and so jarring, is that Shocked is basically one of the good ones. I'm sure her philosophy is evolving and that she doesn't believe today everything that she believed in 2008. But you do not spend a career constantly speaking to the media about sexuality and suddenly totally lose all semblance of a grip on your ability to be decent when the subject arises publicly.

I'm glad Shocked is losing shows over these comments, and I'm glad the Internet is furious. But let's please take a second to consider the possibility that we don't know everything and give her a chance to engage us before we get completely cut and dry.

Here's that interview:

Recently, you talked about becoming a born again Christian and you stated that perhaps you simply attended church a few times too often. In the same way, could someone attend a Muslim mosque or a Buddhist temple and find truth there?
Obviously millions and millions have found that truth. I'm aware of the Christian gospels being the one way, the true way. I don't know if those other religions make that same claim. I don't think Buddhist claim Buddha is the only way. Perhaps Muslims do, but I am way out of my depth here. I'm barely hanging on by my fingernails speaking as a Christian. I am not a model Christian by any sense of the word.

Who is?
I believe that my pastor is. I believe it is so easy to learn and be taught by him. If you knew that there was a man of God on this earth, someone who really had the wisdom and the discernment and the knowledge and the control, would you not follow that person? I'm really persuaded that my pastor is the embodiment of that man of God.

Early on in your career, you were incorrectly assumed to be a lesbian. You once said that you were an honorary lesbian. Now that you've been married, divorced and found religion, why do you think many who claim to be Christians are so openly hateful toward homosexuals?
In his time, Jesus was hanging out with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers, all the people that proper society had banished or had determined were underclass. Today, it is easy for me to imagine that Jesus would hang around those who have been scorned, abandoned and neglected. We live in a homophobic society. But homosexuals are a group of folks who Jesus would recognize. Jesus even says that he didn't come here to be righteous. He came here for those who needed salvation.

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Another update. You guys are really on top of this story that nobody gives a fuck about. Maybe in your next update, you can name one of her songs that anyone would recognize or remember. If anything, this bitch has laid a blueprint on how to get your name back in the public eye. It would be a helluva lot easier to say "god hates fags" near a microphone than it would be to join dr drew latest rehab show on VH1.

On
one hand, she's a genius: Irony gone bad or not, who the hell thought that in 2013, we'd still
be talking about Michelle Shocked? Talk about upping her profile.
No doubt this will launch the second half of her career as Focus on
Family's favorite faux lez, coffeehouse chanteuse. On the other hand,
my reaction here is the same as anytime we hear of a musician
launch into politics: Shut up and sing.